


to be brave

by blazeofglory



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12009516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazeofglory/pseuds/blazeofglory
Summary: Kent is a part-time librarian assistant. Jack is a history major with a crush.Maybe this would be a cute love story if the library wasn't haunted.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Wonder Years "I Wanted So Badly to be Brave."
> 
> Bonus points to anyone who can somehow figure out which specific college library this is based on! There are subtle hints!

“You realize that this is kind of creepy, right?”

Jack looked up from his textbook to give Shitty a disapproving look.

“It’s not creepy,” Jack protested in a much quieter tone than Shitty had used, in deference to the fact that they were in the library and Jack wasn’t an animal. “We’re here to study, and that’s all we’re doing, so it’s not creepy.”

Shitty snorted loud enough for someone at the couch across from them to look up with a glare; Jack elbowed Shitty in the ribs, which earned an eye roll in response.

“This library is way further from our place than the main library,” Shitty explained for the millionth time. “The wifi isn’t better and the desks aren’t cleaner; the only thing it has that the main library doesn’t is that dude.”

Shitty hadn’t raised his voice above appropriate library levels again, but Jack elbowed him once more anyways.

“He could hear you,” Jack hissed quietly, glancing over across the room to where _he_ sat. Jack didn’t know his name, but he stared at that face often enough over the past few months to have it memorized. He sat at the welcome desk in the library lobby, stationed just outside the closed off research room, where he signed people in, answered questions, and probably did other cool librarian assistant things. He was just-- well, there was something about him that-- okay, it wasn’t very deep at all. He was _hot_ and Jack was thirsty and that’s as deep as that went.

He hadn’t looked away from his computer during the time Jack and Shitty had been talking, so Jack let out a breath of relief that they hadn’t been overheard. If this guy found out about Jack’s awkward, sort-of-creepy crush, he could never show his face in this library again-- and despite what Shitty said, he really did like this library for reasons that went beyond hot blonde employees who wore button-downs with the sleeves rolled up, emphasizing their strong arms and had smiles that shone bright across the large room and-- the architecture was nice. The chairs were comfy. Jack wasn’t _obsessed_.

“You’re still staring at him,” Shitty whispered, and Jack looked back down to his textbook immediately, blushing hard. “Listen, bro, it’s only creepy if you never go talk to him.”

“I can’t just _talk to him_.”

“If you’re waiting for him to come talk to you, you’re gonna be waiting a while, considering he probably can’t leave his desk,” Shitty said, glancing surreptitiously over at the guy again. Jesus, at this rate, the guy was bound to look up and find one of them staring soon.

“What could I even say to him?” Jack asked helplessly, resisting the urge to toss up his hands in frustration. Shitty knew damn well that Jack had way too much anxiety to just go up to a hot stranger and start talking, but he would humor him for now.

“You could ask him a question about books or something,” Shitty readily supplied. “It’s literally his job to answer questions.”

“I don’t have any questions to ask.” It was a weak protest and they both knew it.

Shitty was quiet in contemplation for a second; then his face lit up. “Dude, ask him about the collections in here. I bet he loves talking about that shit, librarians are total nerds.”

Jack sighed, glanced at his neglected book once more, then stood up abruptly. If this would get Shitty off his back, he would do it-- and, well, he’d get to look at the guy a lot more close up. That was an opportunity that was hard to pass up.

Jack could barely hear Shitty’s whispered encouragement over the blood pounding in his ears. He took a deep breath and crossed the room, approaching the welcome desk for the first time. The second he stepped up to the desk, the guy looked up and their eyes met.

_Jesus._

His eyes weren’t quite blue and weren’t quite green, but they were bright and beautiful. Up close, this guy was a thousand times hotter than Jack had previously thought-- his hair looked soft and he had freckles on his cheeks and his lips looked perfect for kissing… Jack forced himself to meet the man’s eyes again and prayed he wasn’t blushing.

“How can I help you?” The guy asked, and god, even his voice was attractive. Jack was definitely blushing now.

“I was-- I was actually sort of curious about the collections in here,” Jack managed to get out, as calmly as possible, which was actually pretty calm. Fake it ‘til you make it.  

The guy grinned immediately.

“I have a pamphlet that describes all the collections,” he began, promptly handing Jack one from a stack on the desk. “But I can tell you a little about them all. How much time do you have?”

“As long as it takes,” Jack replied, smiling back. Now that they were actually talking, he felt his anxiety going down-- this was just another normal guy, just doing his job. No need to have a panic attack.

“Well, our biggest collection is on the history of the university, which sounds kind of lame, but it’s actually really interesting--”

“I’m a history major,” Jack cut in, and the man’s smile grew. “I’d love to hear all about it.”

The guy glanced around the lobby; there were barely any people. Then he folded his arms on top of the desk and leaned over it so he was closer to Jack. The smile on his face looked more like a smirk now, and Jack tried not to question why he found that so attractive.

“I’m gonna blow your mind with all the cool shit I know, man. Do you believe in ghosts?”

Jack dragged his eyes away from the guy’s arms and back up to his ridiculously attractive face. He raised a brow. “Ghosts?”

“We allegedly have this book from the first dean of the university,” he began, voice dropping in volume. “It’s bound in human skin. Don’t look at me like that, I’m 100% serious. Rumor has it that the book is haunted.”

“Have you seen the ghost?” Jack asked dryly, and the guy laughed.

“Not yet, but I’m tempted to go find the book and see it for myself.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Well, I suppose it would be less dangerous if I took someone with me, right?” The guy glanced down, at-- oh, at Jack’s mouth-- and then back up to his eyes. Jack felt himself blush again because _oh my god, he was being flirted with_. “My shift on the desk ends in an hour.”

Jack leaned against the desk too, and suddenly they were very, very close. Jack really wanted to count those freckles.

“I’ll go ghost hunting with you,” Jack answered, and the guy’s face lit up immediately.

“ _Perfect_ ,” he responded, a mischievous look on his face. “I’ve been hoping you’d come over and talk to me for ages.”

“Really?”

The guy shrugged, feigning nonchalance that was belied by the faint pinkness in his cheeks. “I don’t get a ton of hot guys in my library, and you’re in here all the time-- you’re hard to miss.”

Jack looked down for a second, flustered, and when he looked back up, the guy was staring at him.

“My name’s Jack,” he finally said. The guy smiled again.

“I’m Kent,” he replied, extending his hand over the desk for Jack to shake it. His hand was warm and soft in Jack’s and he was reluctant to let go. “Glad to finally meet you.”

Jack squeezed Kent’s hand once and finally let go. His smile was so wide, his face sort of hurt, and-- this felt like a good thing. He chose to focus on that feeling instead of the prickling sensation at the back of his neck.


	2. Chapter 2

It was cold in the stacks, but Jack hardly noticed, so warm was Kent’s hand in his own. He’d whispered to Jack that he wasn’t supposed to bring unauthorized guests into the closed stacks-- to keep the rare books safe-- and Jack had worried for a second that Kent would call it all off, but it had actually just meant that Kent took them through the back way. They entered the stacks through the service elevator in the back of the building; every doorway they passed through, Kent had to swipe some sort of card for access. He tugged Jack along by his hand while Jack tried to quell his anxiety and focus instead on how genuinely excited he was to spend time with Kent.

“It’s in here,” Kent said after a while, voice hushed, as they reached a locked door. Instead of a swipe card, Kent pulled a key out of his back pocket and unlocked the door, holding it open for Jack. It was pitch black inside, and for one long, drawn out moment, Jack felt scared of the dark for the first time in his life.

Then Kent flipped the light switch and the door swung shut behind them with a loud bang; Jack jumped.

“The library was broken into once in the nineties,” Kent explained as he led the way down the stacks, hand in Jack’s once more. “They upped security like crazy.”

“Do people come into this room a lot?” Jack asked, and Kent shrugged in response. He kept leading them further into the room, past shelves so high that Jack could barely see the top. This room looked more like a warehouse than the other stacks they’d passed through on the first few floors-- those shelves had held organized, ornate books, and thorough collections, like any regular library. This room on the fourth floor, as Kent had explained on their way up in the elevator, held the unprocessed books and collections. As far as the eye looked, all that lay on the shelves were boxes and boxes, of all shapes and sizes.

Every shelf looked about the same to Jack, but Kent seemed to know where they were going.

“No,” Kent finally answered with a sheepish smile. “Most of the librarians are kind of spooked by this room, so in the rare event they need to retrieve something from up here, they usually send me. I’ve worked here two years now and I’ve only been in here twice.”

“They send you because you’re not scared?”

Kent’s smile slid into that same smirk that Jack found so attractive. “Exactly.”

The further back they got in the room, the colder it got. Under the sleeves of Jack’s sweater, he felt goosebumps rise on his arms. And-- maybe his eyes deceived him, but Jack thought maybe it was getting darker, too.

Those thoughts were confirmed when Kent finally stopped walking. Jack surveyed the area around them: the boxes with hastily scribbled labels written on their sides, the dust laying thick on every surface, and, he was right, the light right above this shelf was out. Though the room was large, this space between two rows of shelves that suddenly seemed much closer together than they had been before, made Jack feel almost claustrophobic. Jack dragged his eyes back to Kent, trying to quell his growing sense of unease, and found Kent already watching him.

“I honestly can’t remember which of these boxes it’s supposed to be in,” Kent admitted, and Jack laughed easily, his ridiculous nerves fleeing once more. His anxiety was making him irrational; this was just a library and a cute boy, nothing bad at all.

“I guess we could look through them all?”

“We could,” Kent acquiesced, but he moved closer to Jack instead of closer to the shelf. It didn’t come as a surprise when his hands, dry and a little dusty from trailing his fingers along the edges of the shelves, found their way to Jack’s face. “The book can wait, though, right?”

There was no trace of anxiety in Jack’s answering smile. He let his hands move to Kent’s sides as he leaned down and Kent leaned up, and their lips met. Somehow, in the freezing cold of the stacks, Kent was still warm to the touch. His lips parted under Jack’s, soft and sweet, as they kissed slowly. Jack-- he didn’t do this often, didn’t kiss boys he barely knew; so he had a half-formed thought to keep it slow.

Kent threw those plans out the window when he licked at Jack’s lips, deepening the kiss. Though he was shorter and smaller, it was clear that he was in control as he pulled Jack towards him, until Jack had Kent pressed up against the shelves. The metal rattled a little as they shook it, but Jack and Kent were too occupied with each other to notice. Emboldened by Kent’s enthusiasm, Jack bit at his lips and licked into his mouth, and when they parted, gasping for breath, Jack didn’t hesitate before leaning down and kissing Kent’s neck.

“ _Jack,_ ” Kent gasped out as Jack’s teeth scraped against Kent’s racing pulse, then sucked hard. Jack didn’t know where his confidence was coming from, but this was a literal fucking dream come true, and Kent was so _hot_ and he was making these breathless little moans, and-- Jack pressed closer, grinding their hips together, and Kent pushed back, and the shelves shook. Before they could even move away, one of the boxes was falling off the shelf, and they jumped apart to avoid getting hit.

Kent, flushed and dazed-looking, swore quietly and immediately knelt down to pick up the scattered books and papers. Jack spared a second to admire the sight of Kent on his knees before he knelt down to help too. Kent’s laugh was startlingly loud in the quiet of the room.

“I think this is the box we were looking for,” Kent said with another quiet chuckle. He held out a piece of paper to Jack. “Someone told me once that it was in the box full of maps.”

Jack unfolded the map that Kent handed him. Any other time, he would’ve been fascinated by the history laying in the box before them, but-- but. He was suddenly reminded of the chill in the room when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; he looked at Kent, and Kent looked at him, and they both avoided looking into the box.

“Do you think it’s really in there?” Jack asked quietly, unsure of why he was even whispering.

There was no mistaking the unease on Kent’s face when he whispered back, “I’m not sure I want to find out.”

Despite his words, Kent looked away from Jack in that moment-- and into the box. For a second, the light above them flickered on for the first time, then off again just as quickly. Jack looked away from the ceiling, back to Kent, who was still staring into the depths of the box on the floor between them.

“Kent?”

Jack, heart racing, said Kent’s name twice more before Kent finally looked up at him, pupils blown wide.

“I don’t think we should be here,” Kent said. His voice was so quiet, Jack wasn’t sure if he had spoken at all. With shaking hands, he reached out-- Jack expected him to push the box away, but Kent reached in.

“Maybe we should g--” Jack cut himself off abruptly, eyes fixed on the book in Kent’s hands. “Oh my god.”

The lights flickered once more; then the room was plunged into complete darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I've come back to this fic a year later with a new chapter!

“Kent?” Jack whispered, voice shaking, reaching out blindly in the pitch black, swearing as his hands only hitting dusty old maps and metal shelving. “ _Kent?”_  

“I’m here,” Kent whispered back after a second, and finally, Jack felt Kent’s hand in his and he squeezed tight. There was a heavy thud, like Kent setting down the book. “We must’ve lost power, but the generator should get the lights back on soon.”

Jack fumbled in his pocket for his phone, turning on the flashlight and blinking in the sudden brightness. His eyes were immediately drawn to the book laying on the ground between them. It looked old, older than anything Jack had ever seen, yellowed and leathery and horrible. There was no title, no ink to be seen anywhere on the cover-- but in the middle of the cover, the leather split into a crude approximation of a smile, too wide to ever be natural, filled with teeth that Jack was all too sure were real. He felt sick just looking at it.

“Why is this here?” Jack asked, finally voicing the thought that occurred to him when Kent first mentioned the book. “Shouldn’t it be in-- in a vault, or something? On display, maybe?”

“I don’t know,” Kent answered in a quiet voice, his eyes also trained on the book. “I mean, it’s fucking terrifying, maybe the curator just wanted it to be forgotten. It’s not a cataloged book, Jack. There’s no record of it that I could find, I wasn’t even sure if it really existed.”

Jack tore his eyes away from the book to look at Kent, whose face was pale and anxious in the harsh light from Jack’s phone. The shadows clung to his edges, though, the darkness of the room pressing in close like a tangible presence. Their breathing was the only sound to be heard. Jack let out a shaky breath, then said, “Let’s put it back and go.”

“Yeah,” Kent agreed, letting go of Jack’s hand and reaching out with shaking hands to pick up the book. It seemed smaller in his hands than it had on the ground; not quite so threatening anymore, despite its gruesome smile. Maybe that’s why Kent didn’t immediately put it into the box-- with careful hands, he opened the book, filling the room with the echo of creaking old leather. Jack shifted closer, too morbidly curious to look away despite his fear at what he may see, and peered down at the book. The pages were yellowed and brittle; Kent turned them carefully. They were all blank. 

“Someone went to the trouble of binding a book in human skin, but they left the pages blank?” Jack mused out loud, even as he felt his unease growing. The room was already so cold, but without power, it was growing even colder-- rapidly, _too_ rapidly, they could see their breath after only a moment. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“There has to be a record of this somewhere,” Kent said after a moment, still idly flipping the empty pages with careful fingers. “It may not be cataloged, but we don’t just accept donations or buy books without a trace, you know? This book’s provenance has to be on record _somewhere_ , even if it’s on some old scrap of paper from the 70s.”

Jack didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that he didn’t want to know _anything_ about the provenance of this book, and he felt inclined to trust his sense of foreboding. He hesitated for a second, then gently took the book from Kent’s hands, shutting it with a quiet thud, and promptly placing it back in the box. He shivered for a second, the cold sinking into his bones. 

Without another word, Kent placed the lid on the box and stood up, carefully lifting it back onto the shelf. Jack stood too, glancing anxiously around with his flashlight. 

“Why haven’t the generators come on?” 

“Shit,” Kent mumbled, stepping closer and taking Jack’s hand again, pressing their cold palms together as they made their way back down the aisle. “Maybe the generators are out too. Good thing you’ve got your phone to light the way.”

As if on cue, the light went out, and they froze in their tracks.

Jack squinted in the darkness, pressing the buttons on his phone to no avail. He let out a tired sigh and admitted defeat. “It’s dead.” 

“This can’t be happening,” Kent whispered. “I don’t have my phone, it’s still in my backpack.”

“Our eyes will adjust,” Jack said, forcing himself to sound more confident than he was. “We’ll be able to see in a minute, and--”

Somewhere in the library, a door slammed, echoing loudly throughout the room, and they both jumped.

“Hello?” Kent called out tentatively. 

“Please tell me this is all a prank,” Jack whispered, turning an accusing glare to where he thought Kent was, though he didn’t let go of Kent’s hand. “If you just wanted to scare me, you can stop now, you can tell your friends to turn the lights back on--”

“Shut up,” Kent hissed, and Jack fell silent immediately. “Do you hear that?” 

The room was completely silent. Jack was about to say so, but then-- the distant sound of footsteps. 

“One of your coworkers?” Jack whispered, squinting in the darkness as his eyes slowly adjusted. The shelves towered over them, boxes piled precariously, and all he could see of Kent right in front of him was the fog of Kent’s breath.

“No one works on this floor,” Kent whispered back, hand tightening in Jack’s. “It’s only storage up here, we almost never get retrievals for unprocessed--”

Kent fell silent as the steps crept closer.

“Someone could be looking to see where you went?”

“Maybe,” Kent said in a hushed voice. "But I somehow doubt that." 

They both kept their eyes on the end of the aisle, not daring to move as the footsteps came closer and closer. The steps finally reached the end of their aisle, but in the darkness, Jack couldn’t tell who was there. All he could see was a shadow.

“Hello?” Kent called out again.

The shadow stayed there for a long moment, while Jack and Kent hardly dared to draw breath. Long seconds ticked on, until the shadow shifted, the footsteps walking away, deep into the bowels of the library.

“What the fuck is going on?” Jack whispered.

Kent squeezed his hand and whispered back, “ _Run.”_


	4. Chapter 4

Sweating and panting, hearts beating hard, Jack and Kent finally stopped running once they made it through the meandering halls, the series of locked doors, and down the stairs, ‘til they were finally in the basement. Jack still had a vice grip on Kent’s hand, ready to drag them both out the emergency exit, when the lights suddenly turned back on, fluorescent and searingly bright, and Jack let go as he blinked in surprise.

“I really wish I had an explanation for what just happened,” Kent declared, face red from exertion but smiling warily over at Jack. Any doubts that Jack had about Kent, about whether this could all be some cruel prank, were gone-- he didn’t think anyone could fake the level of terror that Jack had felt coming from Kent while they ran.

“This is an old building,” Jack suggested, mentally scrambling for an explanation and trying to think of anything other than the sinister specter of a shadow and yellow teeth in a gnarled leather smile. He scrubbed a tired hand over his face, willing his breath to slow, pushing away the rising panic. He wasn’t about to let himself have a panic attack, not in front of this cute boy that he’d literally only just met, even after whatever the fuck they just went through together. “It was just-- just a power outage and a weird shadow.”

Kent shook his head immediately. “You know it was more than that.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that-- the truth was, he had no idea what just happened. The only explanations that made any sense were unthinkable. Ghosts weren’t real and no book could really be cursed-- Jack had always been a rational guy, okay? He knew these things. He took a deep breath and let out slowly, and told himself that this was all stress-induced anxiety over midterms. Out of habit, Jack reached for his phone before he remembered that the battery had died-- yet, when he touched the home button again anyway, the screen lit up.

There was still 53% battery. 

“I need to go,” Jack said quietly, staring down at his screen until it went dark again. This didn’t make sense, _none_ of it made sense, and a panic attack was fucking imminent. “I have a paper to finish.” 

“Right,” Kent said. Jack looked back up to see Kent frowning. “Look, I’m sorry about all this. I know that didn’t quite, uh, make a great first impression.”

Despite the fading adrenaline and rising anxiety, Jack found himself smiling.

“It wasn’t all so bad,” Jack conceded. Kent smiled back, disheveled and flushed and handsome enough to give Jack heart palpitations.

“Let’s do it this again sometime,” Kent replied, a mischievous look in his eyes. “But maybe more kissing and less running next time.”

Jack laughed, already nodding even as he edged closer to the door, desperate to get out of the library. “That sounds like a plan.”

 

* * *

 

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Jack pointed out stubbornly, arms crossed over his chest and glaring at Shitty.

“Expand your mindset, bro,” Shitty replied, offering the blunt. Jack contemplated it for a second, then took it-- if there was ever a good time to get high, this was it. He took a hit, then another, and then one more, before handing it back to Shitty, who was grinning.

Jack let out the smoke slowly, watching it dissipate in the cold evening air, and prided himself on not coughing. “I feel crazy.”

“You’re not,” Shitty refuted, nudging Jack with an affectionate elbow. He leaned heavily against Jack’s side, a welcome warmth to combat the cold early winter air and the chill of the concrete beneath them. They stared out at their backyard, the grass long dead and empty beer cans strewn around because their roommates were, apparently, animals. The wonders of living in what amounted to a frat house. “Sounds like a paranormal encounter can be pretty fuckin’ stressful, and you were _already_ stressed. I mean, like, you’re always stressed, dude, and exams fuck you up.” 

“It probably wasn’t a paranormal encounter,” Jack countered, then sighed and dropped his head on Shitty’s shoulder. He didn’t bother addressing the rest of the comment. “But if it was-- and I’m _not_ saying it was-- but what would that even _mean_?”

“You’re super haunted now and the ghost of Shelldrake Library wants to eat your soul?” 

Jack laughed and took another hit when Shitty passed him the blunt.

“Maybe the ghost just wants some company,” Jack suggested with a grin. “It’s probably lonely all alone in that room for so long.”

Shitty hummed in consideration, then offered, “Maybe the ghost is homophobic and it got mad that you guys were making out in its designated haunting zone.” 

“Well, shit,” Jack gasped out through his laughter, “If I’d known there was a designated haunting zone, I would’ve just made out with him in the stairwell!”

It was several long minutes before either of them could stop laughing. Jack was feeling lighter already, whether from the drugs or from the company, it didn’t even matter. Haunted or not-- the jury was still out-- for the moment, he felt like everything was going to be alright.

Their laughter eventually trailed off into comfortable silence, and a few minutes later, Shitty nudged Jack again, and Jack startled.

“What?” 

“You should text him,” Shitty said, and Jack could hear the grin in his voice without even seeing it. “Possible haunting aside, he’s hot and you like him.” 

Jack huffed a quiet laugh, already reaching for his phone. 

J: _Hey, are you free tonight?_

A response came only seconds later, and Jack grinned wide when he saw it.

K: _I thought you’d never ask._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My love for Jack and Shitty's friendship is endless!!
> 
> Don't worry, the romance (and the spooky stuff) are back with a vengeance next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

“Tonight was refreshingly normal,” Jack said with a smile, and Kent laughed.

Their hands brushed as they walk side by side, and then Kent twined their fingers together and Jack squeezed, and neither of them could stop smiling. It was a cold night, with a sharp breeze harassing them every few minutes, but very little could dim their spirits right then.

“I swear I’m _usually_ normal,” Kent replied, grinning at Jack. His nose and cheeks were red from the cold and his eyes looked so green with the hunter green jacket he was wearing-- Jack wanted to kiss him again, but he restrained himself.

They kept walking along, crunching fallen leaves with every step. Jack nudged Kent in the side and asked, “So, you promise no more hauntings?”

Jack expected Kent to laugh, but he didn’t. Kent shot him a nervous look out of the corner of his eye, then squeezed Jack’s hand and looked away, staring down at the path in front of them.

“I’ve been asking around,” Kent said after a moment, a sheepish look on his face now. “Look, if you wanna forget that any of that happened, that’s fine, but-- something happened and I want to know what.”

“Okay,” Jack answered, surprising even himself. “Did you hear something?”

Kent glanced around warily, biting his lip. Jack squeezed his hand in what he hoped came across as reassurance.

“Let’s go inside,” Kent finally said. “I’ll tell you then.”

Once they finally reached Kent’s apartment and got settled in on the couch with a blanket over their laps, Kent took Jack’s hand in his own once more.

“I have this coworker who’s been at the library forever,” Kent started, staring down at their hands. “Like, _decades_ , you know? She knows everything there is to know about the library and the university. So I asked her about the book.”

Jack suppressed a chill, tightening the blanket around his shoulders, as he prompted, “And?”

Kent looked up, frowning. “She said the book doesn’t exist. When I told her that we saw it, she said that someone probably put it there as a prank. But she also said that-- well, she thinks the library is haunted.”

“Did you show her the book?” Jack pressed, brows furrowed. Kent shook his head, a rueful look on his face.

“Not yet. She refuses to go into that room and I didn’t want to go alone.”

They were quiet for a minute, but then Jack couldn’t keep his curiosity in any longer. “Why does she think the library is haunted?”

“She saw it,” Kent whispered, finally looking up to meet Jack’s eye. “Alone in that room, back in ‘86, she swears she saw the same thing we did. Like-- like a shadow, but _alive_ , Jack. She said she’s only seen it the once, but she’s heard it roaming the stacks late at night when everyone else is gone. There are things that can’t be explained-- boxes falling off of secure shelves, items getting rearranged in a locked room that hasn’t been touched in years, whispers of voices even in the dead of night…”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Kent said softly. “She said that others have experienced it too. For Halloween a few years ago, the university newspaper even ran a story about it, with interviews from library staff.”

“This can’t be real,” Jack protested, shaking his head. “Once the rumor gets started, any time anyone hears a weird noise, they just think it’s a ghost. It’s an old building, there are a thousand reasons those things could be happening.”

“But we _saw_ it!” Kent stands up suddenly, the blanket falling to the ground, as he turns to glare at Jack. “There was no one else there, Jack! We can’t explain it!”

“I don’t know what we do from here,” Jack pointed out, feeling suddenly exhausted and rubbing his eyes. “If it’s a ghost, what do we do?”

Kent sat back down heavily, letting out a long sigh.

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll do research,” Jack declared after a thoughtful moment. “We’ll find that old article and see where we can go from there.”

“You don’t have to do anything, you know that, right?”

Jack tried to smile, but he wasn’t sure it worked.

“I know,” he said, looking up and meeting those unnaturally green eyes. He hesitated, then added, “But I’m a historian, I can’t just let a mystery lay. And besides, this ghost-- well, it could be dangerous, right? We should get to the bottom of this, in case anyone gets hurt.”

Kent made a soft sound of agreement, leaning into Jack’s side and sighing again. 

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Kent prompted in a quiet voice, a whisper in Jack’s ear. “Another reason?”

Jack shivered as he wrapped his arm around Kent, holding him close, and admitted, “I don’t know, it’s just… I’ve been cold ever since we touched that book." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter this time, sorry about that! But NEXT CHAPTER.... we're back to the spooky stuff. It's gonna get creepy.


End file.
